The Pain of Strangers
by Marian.Locksley
Summary: Marian, Robin and Guy all find pain in the Holy Lands, but all pain is different. What happens when they realise that one person pain can help cure anothers. Set post series 2. Please R&R :
1. In the Begining

I sink into the darkness, letting it pull me under. I no-longer feel the searing ache that pierced my belly, just a constant dull pain. I can dimly hear a voice, it calls my name. I want to tell it to go away; I want to slide into the blackness. But it won't let me; it holds me on the edge of the dark.

…

I look at her body, that's all it is now – a body. It stopped being Marian the moment she took her last breath. I, even thinking the name makes me want to cry out. I bite my lip, finding a perverse kind of pleasure in the physical pain – it dulls the hurt in my heart.

Why did she have to be so stubborn, why did she have to stand up to him? Why? I know the answer, just as I know that her actions would be perfectly mimicked by mine were the situation reversed; but it doesn't stop it hurting. My stupid, brave, fearless Marian, what I would give to see your eyes one last time, to her you speak my Marian…my wife.

…

I try to hear her voice in my head, the gentle tones that could stop the darkness from engulfing me even when nothing else could. Because of her I had the strength to fight, all because of her. But her voice escapes me now; it lingers at the edge of my mind, just out of reach. The woman I loved most in the world, and I can't even remember her voice, what kind of man am I?

I feel the blade slice through her, oiled metal against soft skin. I hear her cry of pain, see her back arch, her hands trying desperately to stop it, stop the pain. At first I feel alive, elated, finally she will succumb to my will and mine alone. Then fear closes around my mind, fear and horror. What have I done?

My will? It is not my will that she dies, that she lies in the sand, turning it red with her blood. It is not my will that she screams out again, asking someone anyone to make the pain stop. It is not my will that the last glance she gives me is of agony, burning unrelenting agony. That is not my will.

…

The voice ceases, drifting away- and I sense the presence that anchored me to the surface fade. But I no longer want the blackness. I struggle upwards refusing to let the once comforting – now terrifying, darkness draw me in.

I will not die! I cling to the pain, anchoring myself to it. Letting it envelope me, until I can no longer feel anything else. Something in me refuses to give up, something holds me here in this world of pain.

A memory perhaps, of a face half lost in the darkness, a man with laughing eyes. There are other faces here in the dark, familiar welcoming faces, reaching out to me. I want to go to them, touch them, collapse into their arms, but I can't. The face holds me – I call to it, turn towards it, I must keep fighting, I mustn't give up.

…

I carry the body towards the dunes, ignoring the pain in my arms, my feet. My legs sink deep into the sand, and I collapse unable to continue. The ground feels hot and dry – different from the cold damp ground of home. The air is different too – dry and harsh, full of grit that sticks to your mouth and tongue.

This is not where her body should lie. Not in this strange soil, so far from all she knew. I scream at the sky, yelling my fury and hurt at the heavens. She wasn't yours to take! She was mine, mine…I long to cry, but all the moisture has long since gone from my body, and no tears will come.

They find me like that, they take her body from me, carrying it away across the sand. I try to reach them, tell them this is wrong, but strong hands hold me back. I loved her! LOVE HER! She can't have died, not here, not now – we should have lived a long life together, and the forest cool and green, that should have been her grave. But no- one hears me and I am left calling to the sun.

…

I watch the figure in front of me, it would be so easy…but no, I will never use a sword again. The horse moves steadily onwards, I stay upright out of habit – my whole being is focused inside.

I want someone to blame, anyone, but there is no-one only me. maybe if she hadn't seemed so happy, maybe if she had not confirmed my worst fears, maybe…What good is maybe? What's done cannot be undone, her words or mine?


	2. A Prision of the Mind

The darkness moves, it is not, as I once thought, a solid mass, but an ever-changing presence. The faces, so clear to me when first the blackness descended, are gone. Replaced by other images: silhouettes of strange men, flickering lights, and people. Moving closer but never penetrating the dark veil that surrounds me.

My laughing eyes are clearer now, and I remember other things, golden brown hair, a bow, and a name…Rob…then end is lost. Something else is here too, lurking in the darkness – bright blue eyes, but they seem on the edge of my mind, just out of reach. I dream too; of faces and people, of bright swords flashing through the air. I dream of green, and a smell I can't quite place, rain?

There is something in these dreams, I am sure of it; they are trying to tell me something. The sword, the flash, the bright blue gaze. The green, the rain, my laughing eyes.

…

The ship rolls under my feet and I lurch from side to side, feeling the floor slip beneath me. My shoulder hits to wood of the wall, pain flooding through me, I relax into it. There is a knocking at the door and Much enters. I see his eyes flick back and forth as he takes in my surroundings: the broken chest, the putrid filth covering the floor. He holds his hand to his nose, trying not to gag.

Finally I feel his eyes upon me, wide and shocked, and I know what he sees. A broken man. My hair is long and filthy, my body covered in cuts and bruises. I feel the new wound on my arm sting; soon it will join the mass of scars covering my arms and chest. Slowly he comes towards me, reaching down, trying to move me into a standing position. He holds me trying to lead me towards the door, but I don't want to go.

I hit him as hard as I can, blindly striking out until I feel his grip slacken and he releases me. Dropping to the ground I curl into a ball and rock back and forth, back and froth. Finally my breathing clams and a sense of dark numbness descends, blocking out the pain screaming inside my head. But images creep back, slipping and sliding through the cracks in the numbness. I see her face, her eyes, her lips, the words she so wants to say trapped inside her mind. I see her body, forever held beneath the sand. And I cover my eyes trying to block it out.

…

The ship stands before us in the harbour, proud and tall, it seems to mock me, with my hunched shoulders and wary look. The small man in front of me talks on and on, filling the silence around us with meaningless drivel. I hardly spare him a thought, stupid insignificant fly, swat it away but it never leaves you alone. Again I glance over my shoulder, away from the water and the gleaming white sails, towards the dunes.

Somewhere out there she lies buried, or maybe they didn't even do that. Maybe she still lies in the blood soaked sand. NO! I think I may have shouted the word, for the little man turns, startled, but I do not care. I clap my hands over my ears, why won't she go away?

I can take it no more, she will not die! Not because of me. I turn and run, back across the harbour towards the sand. The part of my mind that is still thinking rationally makes me stop and take a horse, but even that small delay hurts me and as soon as I am mounted I gallop off towards her, towards Marian.

…

For a while the voices stopped and I felt my body grow unnaturally heavy. Again the blackness pulls me in but still I fight it, I will not let it take me, not yet. Then gradually I feel the weight lifts, and I hear again the strange distorted voices, as though filtering through a thick wall. No, not voices, a voice; a man's voice.

Something in it is familiar, but like the dreams it remains just out of reach. It calls a name, Marian. Who is Marian? Maybe they are searching for her, maybe she is one of the faces in the darkness. I try to call, to move, to tell them I'm here, that I can help them find this Marian. But the effort is too great, and I drift once more into the hazy world of sleep.

…

Eventually the real physical pain becomes too much for my body. They take me away and leave me in a room with a strange man – I ignore him. He tries to feed me, but I spit the food in his face. He tries to bandage my wounds but I bite and kick until he stops. Maybe if it was Djaq, but no, not even she could heal the pain that encompasses my whole body, like living, breathing fire.

They don't seem to understand this though; they don't understand that physical pain is a relief- that I crave it. They call me crazy, tell me I'm killing myself, and I smile. She is dead, she can never come back, and if I die too then I will be with her…forever. Finally they tie me up and force the food down my throat, I succumb to the humiliation. I cannot stop them; maybe if I cease resisting they'll realise I don't want help. I don't want to live.

…

The sand runs like liquid through my fingers, so that for every handful I remove another takes its place. I want to scream in frustration, I will never find her! There must be hundreds of graves, maybe even thousands, row upon row upon row. I think I'm going mad, I am searching for a body, how could she possibly be alive? I think, more then anything, I want to see it, the final irrevocable truth that she's dead.

I am not sure what draws me to this site, out of all the mounds of sand, why this one? True it has no shield; a sign that this is no soldier under the earth, but there are others like that and I do not feel drawn to them. I would like to say it is my love that draws me to her, but I think it is more likely it is my guilt. I call her name, over and over, and just for a second I think I see a movement in the sand.


	3. Eyes in the stars

There is no time in my world; I do not know whether I have been here days, months or even years. I do not even know where here is. There are markers, breakers in the tireless monotony of this colourless place, ways of telling the passing of time, even if I do not know how much. I may be blind to the world, but I can still feel, hear. I am still alive…I think. But how can you tell? All I can do is cling onto the light and fight the darkness.

I can still remember my laughing eyes, but they are growing dim now – slowly fading out of my consciousness, drifting closer to the sea of blackness. It seems as they disappear other shapes are becoming clear, beyond the darkness pinpricks of light are appearing. The shadowy figures that have haunted my days and nights are coming into sharper, more real. No-longer distant grey ghosts, now half obscured people, seen through the mist on a moonlit night.

…

The ground feels strange after so long at sea, I cannot find my balance and my legs, still weak, cannot hold my weight. They carry me off the ship and place me alone on the bank, while they scout for somewhere to spend the night. I squint at the sky, the first stars are sprinkling across the velvety blackness, is she among them? When I was a child my mother would tell me each soul was a star, burning for those it loved on the Earth. And when another died it would join them, hundreds of burning souls, studded across the sky, guardians of the heavens.

Eventually they come back for me, lifting the makeshift stretcher which serves as my bed. As we draw closer to the town the stars fade, their brightness dulled by the approaching lights. Her light dimmed, the bright spark of fire disappearing from her eyes even as she took her last breath. It was then that I realised my mothers story was true, the light dancing behind your eyes leaves you in death and flies up to the heavens to take its place among the stars.

…

The movement in the sand was at first so faint it seemed a trick of the light. I ignore it, sitting back on my heels, feeling the sun burn my back and sweat trickling down my chest. But then again I see the twitch, a tiny animal pushing its way through the sand, and my hope flares. Could it be true, is it possible that she's still alive? And suddenly I am digging, faster and more furious than ever before. No longer do I feel the suns rays on my back, the nagging persistent pain running through my arms, all I can think of is her.

A thought strikes me, a cold bucket of water thrown over my head. Did they remove the blade when they buried her? Or does she lie, even now, the silver piece of metal protruding from the stomach? I can see it is my minds eyes, minute in every detail. The bright flash of the sword, the piercing shriek, the way her blood spilled onto the blade, turning the metal a dull red. The sand, which adheres to everything sticking to her wound, dimming crimson to almost black, this change so clear against the stark white fabric of her dress. Her eyes dark with fear, yet still alive, oh so alive. That light, that will to live, could not, cannot be gone.

…

The darkness is suddenly gone, like a veil lifted, and I shrink back from the bright, painful light. My grey half-world is gone and this light is intense, so intense it burns. Suddenly I am not sure if I want this, where the blackness held me, welcomed me, this light turns me away, refusing to accept me, a newcomer to its domain. My mind scrambles back, searching for remembered darkness, but it is gone, slipping away like water through my hands.

With nowhere to run, I notice there is something different about this light. The colour is wrong, why is it red? I panic; it must be blood, blood that covers my eyes, turning my world red. Then I notice the dark streaks across the red, and I understand. Yes it is blood, but not from my wound, this blood is inside my body, I am seeing the sun filtering through my closed eyes. "Marian?" the voice startles me, and against my will my eyes snap open. Staring down at me, his eyes rimmed in sand and tears, is a man. A man with an oddly familiar bright blue gaze.

…

I stare up at the ceiling, small cracks breaking the continuous colour, my eyes follow them. Where are my stars? My souls, watching my life on earth? Where is the soft moonlight? Where are the black branches of trees, creating a natural roof hundreds of metres above my head? Where is the feel of leaves underneath me, the smell of damp ground? And where oh where is the soft warmth of another lying beside me, her breath warm against my cheek? Where is she when she should be here with me?

The room is growing stifling; I need the air outside, I need to see the stars. Slowly I pull myself upright, my body aches in protest but I continue – I am used to pain. When my feet touch the floor I know immediately that I cannot stand, so I drop to my knees and crawl. What would Robin Hood say if he saw me now? I ask myself this question and then decide I do not care about the answer. I am not Robin Hood, maybe I was once, but now I am a shell, a hollow vessel with nothing to fill it. I smile, that will be my name now, the Hollowman. And the Hollowman crawls along the floor, making his way slowly towards the stairs.

…

I stop when I can dig no more, when hands are raw and I cannot see out of sand covered eyes. I have failed, how did I ever think I could find her? I do not even have the strength to dig out a grave – I am weak and I am a coward. The sand at my feet mocks me, running in a steady trickle down the sloping sides of the hole. I should I keep going, I should finish what I started, but I have neither the strength nor the will to continue.

I see a piece of dead grass at the side of the grave, funny, there was once grass here. I reach out towards it; something in me feels compelled to remove it, as though it mars the otherwise flawless ground. I tug at it, trying to pull it from the ground, but it does not move, something is holding it beneath the sand. I brush away at the mound covering it, and see that there is more grass; it is strangely long and wavy, almost like hair. Hair! There is someone buried here, someone with long, brown, wavy hair.


	4. Islands of Colour

**Author's note: Sorry for the long delay, been away on holidays, for those of you still reading here's another chapter. And I just thought I'd point out (in case it wasn't clear) that although the characters are all talking about roughly the same time it's not exact, some are in front and some are behind. Hope you all like it; please review…******

…

It seems my world must always be defined in colours; for it was after the blackness ended that the redness descended. I do not understand what this bloody haze means, but I know it is different from the all encompassing blackness. It is not solid, nor is it a place, it is more like a veil – a thin piece of red fabric draped over my eyes, changing the way I see the world. There are only two things that have not changed since the blackness left, I cannot tell time, and I cannot talk.

I want too, I need too, I can feel the words bubbling up inside me waiting to spill out, but something holds them back. It is a feeling more then a physical force, a presence telling me to wait, that a time will come to let the words speak, but it is not yet. I can see people, bloody shapes and ever-changing shadows; most come and go but one man never leaves my side. Even now I feel him, his voice a constant presence in the back of my mind. It soothes me, like the closeness of a mother soothes a sleeping child. I know him I am sure, but I cannot remember how or when. All I know is this – I need him; and from his voice, and the touch of his hand against mine, he needs me too.

…

I wake when the dew on my clothes grows so heavy, my skin itself is damp. It is still dark, although dawn is pushing its inquisitive face ever closer towards the horizon, and the stars have started to dim. I know I should get up, crawl back to the inn door and lie there until someone notes absence and comes searching, but I don't. I know what my days will hold for me, and I know that I will not live like that. A prisoner amongst my men, held captive by my failing body while my mind and soul ache for another place, another time. I may be the Hollowman, but even empty things know when their time has come.

And now is my time, this hour before dawn, which is neither day nor night - the watching hour. The world is silent, the sky ad trees holding their breath, the whole of creation waiting for my decision. It is in this soundless colourless world before day breaks, that you see you life stretching behind you, a woven tapestry of stories and secrets. And in the tapestry you see every flaw, every wrong decision, but in most everything adds up to create a full and glorious whole. I am not most, my tapestry will never be complete, a thread which has been woven through my whole life has snapped, and now all that is left is a huge gaping hole. I know if I let it the hole will draw me in, closer and closer, and so it is easy, almost too easy to make my decision. Using the last of my strength I push myself onto my knees and set out towards the forest.

…

Her body shocks me, I do not know what I expected, perhaps the same person I knew in England, perhaps the sightless rotting body of my nightmares; but not this, never this. Her face is sunken, bones far too prominent above hollow cheeks. Her skin is red, burnt by the sun and sand alike, and covered in tiny scratches. There was no sword, no piece of metal sticking garishly from her abdomen, but maybe this is worse. Her white dress – dyed a reddish brown around the wound – is stuck to her skin, glued in place by congealed blood, fusing skin and fabric, until two become one. But that is not the worst, not even her hair, which once shone like copper, now matted and filthy, can compare to the horror before my eyes. A horror I have caused.

Through her stomach is a clear hole, a slash through pale skin, bearing her open to the world. Even in death her hands rest upon it, finger nails grimy with dried blood. I cannot see clearly, for the sunlight reflects off the sand, half-blinding me, but smell alone tells me enough. This is not a wound to be easily healed – inside or out.

Repulsed and fascinated I lean closer, swallowing the bile that rises to my throat, the feeling of dread that lies thick in my stomach. My fingers stretch out, without conscious decision, to touch the ragged flesh. Her name escapes from my lips, a whisper of fear and embarrassment, and, wonder of all wonders, her eyes open to meet mine.

…

It is as though my mind is a separate entity from my body. I feel the pain that wracks my failing form, but it is abstract. I see it, feel it, explore it; how can on body endure so much pain and yet still live? My own body is a mystery, its strength fascinates me, I just hope it is enough. I know I am sick, gravely sick, for the blackness is creeping back, blurring the sides of my vision, intruding into my red world. I have felt this once before, a long time ago.

Then it was not a man beside me, but a woman. I loved her; I know this although I do not recall who she was. Was, yes that is right, she is one of the faces in the blackness which means she has passed through the world of the living. I loved her, and trusted her, and she comforted me. Holding me in her arms, singing, talking; giving me strength to fight the darkness. She reminds me of this man, both of them points of strength, an attachment to a world beyond the blackness and pain. Maybe I am drowning, floating across a sea of blackness, clinging to those around me, islands of light. But how long can they hold me before I pull them under?

…

As the light grows details become clearer, the leaves littering the ground, a patchwork of autumn beneath my hands. I can feel the stiffness in my limbs, the pain clawing its way up my spine. After so many weeks of sickness and delirium, of refusing food, my body is rusty, unused. I realise now how foolish I have been, taking my supple limbs and quick soundless strides for granted. Never realising how much I relied on them-used them in the life I live, lived. Now when each breath pains me, and every movement threatens to make me body seize up, I realise I will never make it alone.

There are other things I took for granted, position, wealth, friendship, the love of others. And her, of course her, her life, her living breathing body – that I took for granted. But one by one these things have dropped away; I've been outlawed, shunned, stripped of wealth and power, and now finally I have left those who truly cared for me, now I am completely alone. Foolish man that I was I blamed others for my misfortunes; I never took time to think that maybe I was to blame. But I am, always was and always will be, everything that I hate everything that has happened to me, it is all my fault. I wanted to be loved, unconditionally, but when those who truly loved me told me so I turned them away. So confident was I of my own importance that I forgot the importance of others, and now I have paid the ultimate price.

She told me once that we had never spoken the truth to each other, when I first thought I would loose her, she told me we cover our thoughts and feelings with lies and half-truths. She was right. I say I help others, I preach about open mindedness and acceptance, but do I listen to my own words? No I do not. I do not accept people, I pretend to, and oh how convincing that pretence is, it even fooled me. But I am blind, blind and deaf to words and actions that do not fit with my opinion, suit my purpose. As Much once said to me, I never ever listen.

…

Her eyes, something is wrong, and suddenly the thrill that had filled my whole body upon finding her alive is gone. Although she is undoubtedly and unmistakably Marian, she is not the Marian I knew. Those eyes were stranger's eyes; in them I saw no flash of recognition, no fire – just empty coldness. Whoever, whatever I have found it is no longer Marian. The blow is almost too much, to have found her alive and then…this. Maybe it would have been better if she'd stayed dead. No anything is better than that!

I think it is the emptiness that scares me, fear would be understandable, expected even, and pain, but nothing? She was adept at hiding her true feelings (a lesson hard learned by me), and there was a distance in her gaze, a barrier placed there, I think, for protection, but cold? No never cold. Never like this: an empty shell. And I know I'll do whatever it takes to heal her.

No-one knows I'm no we're, here and even if they do, I doubt anyone cares. Something about the hopelessness of my situation makes me laugh and then I am crying, tears streaming down my cheeks. I haven't cried since I was a child, the day my mother died, and once I start I can't stop. In a small part of my brain I register what I must look-like to an observer; a grown man, kneeling in the middle of the desert, holding a supposedly dead person in his arms, and crying like a child.

…

**End note: Hope you enjoyed this chapter and it didn't freak you out too much. I'll update as soon as I can, please please please review.**

**xxx**


	5. Decisions

**Author's note: Sorry for the delay, Yearly Exams, and I had to think quite hard about where Robin was going. Hope it was worth the wait. This chapter is for LadyKate1, thanks for all the nice words :)**

…

The man talks to me, his voice chasing away the darkness – becoming a permanent fixture in my mind. He tells me of times and places, that all seem impossibly far away; of adventures and excitement, feasts and famines, and of people, always of people. One man in particular stands out, Robin; the name brings back my laughing eyes. Are they connected? I cannot tell, but it seems this Robin is important, very important.

He tells me of how Robin saved me, numberless times, how he was kind to me, protected me, and how he loves me. Odd isn't it, a man who meant so much to me, who loved me, and I suppose, who I loved, and I can barley remember his name? If he means so much, how come there is no memory of him, why is my mind blank? And what did he do to put such pain, such longing, into my teller's voice?

I want to comfort him, tell him I do not love Robin, I do not know Robin, but I cannot. I want to hold him in my arms and rock him back and forth until all that has hurt him, for I am sure he has been hurt, is forgotten, but I am too weak. All I can do is listen to the words that slip from between his lips and wish they were different.

There is another name that riddles his speech, Marian, but it seems unlike Robin this is not some charter from a tale. This name, it appears, belongs to me. When first he spoke it I thought he was talking to another, it is not until now I have made the connection. The name is not familiar, and yet, although I search my mind, I cannot find another. So now I am Marian, I like it, the name gives me a purpose, a place to belong. Only nameless things dwell in the dark, and I no longer number among them – now I have a name.

…

The passing of years, and, more recently, the turmoil of my mind, have chipped away at my memoires, until only those most recent, those I most want to forget, remain. Until now that is. In the silence of the forest, the sun-soaked memories of my childhood float back, tinted golden by reminiscence. Long days spent wandering the woods with my mother, feasts and dances, simpler and yet wilder to the ones of my recent past. The cook, a kind, open-hearted woman, speaking to me in a tongue both foreign and strangely familiar; and racing across deserted beaches on small hardy ponies, the shrieks of a young girl echoing in my ears. Who was she? A friend, no family I think, a cousin?

Darker thoughts crop to mind, tainting the golden memories. My father, screaming at my mother, striking out. Endless nights spent huddled beneath beds, trembling, waiting for that step on the stairs. Carriage rides passed in stony silence, two unspeaking parents, still as statues.

The mornings when my mother's face was so disfigured by violence it was painful to witness. A child's questioning hands reaching out, touching swollen flesh, unknowing and uncomprehending. The freedom of those few stolen weeks, away with my mother – safe from my father's shadow.

Memories lying dormant in my mind, suppressed, almost forgotten, warped and changed by lies and falsehoods told from my father's mouth. But now they come flooding back, and so does the realisation, the only time I was truly happy was with my mother's people. And so, with aching legs and leaden arms, I head towards the setting sun.

…

The fever that wracks her body is savage and untamed. Her already gaunt frame becomes a collection of bones, covered in transparent skin, some cruel mockery of a human form. She cries out at night, cold, inhuman sounds that do not belong to this world.

Physicians come, with their strange balms, making the room smell of strange, unknown herbs, their dark skin and odd ascents disturb me. I long for the comforting security of known lands and medicines, the simple remedies that I can understand. But alas it cannot be so and we are alone.

For all their herbs and balms she does not change, her face stays bone white and her throat so dry that even swallowing water produces a cry of pain. They tell me that they can do no more, that she is beyond saving, and it is a cruelty to hold her to the world. But I have always been called cruel and my heart still echoes with some unfulfilled hope. They shake their heads muttering of madmen and hopeless causes, but I do not care. My fate is bound to her and there is nothing I can do to change that.

They tell me that she can hear me, that I should talk to her and maybe she will understand. Even to me their words sound empty, but I am willing to try anything, anything to keep her with me. so I tell her stories, wonderful stories, woven from life and fairy-tales, spinning around her a world of light and colour, like the one to which she belonged.

…

Gradually the red recedes, pulling a curtain away from my senses. The dim fog which has been creeping into my mind since the darkness first came, wending its way into my head, is dissipating, skittering away like rats before a cat. Everything seems clearer, a soft breeze from an unknown source, plays across my skin, cooling the sheen of sweat that covers it.

Smell returns, and the heady smoke fills my head, making it spin. My throat, although still sore and aching, no longer feels like rough sandpaper, and I gratefully accept the water that trickles into my mouth. My hearing, the only sense that has never failed me, is clear, and his voice, my constant companion, falls on eager ears.

Sight returns slowly, and although my world is still dark it is a different kind of darkness, kept in place by the sheer effort it takes to open my eyes. Moving even a tiny muscle hurts, and although I long to see the bright colours once more my strength fails me, and I must wait. Instead I relish in my sharpened mind, drinking in each sensation and reviling in its freedom, its completeness.

I feel the change in me, subtle, almost unnoticeable, but I know it is there. It is a rare moment of silence between two stories, and the breath of the teller sounds heavy to newly awakened ears. My eyes flicker open without conscious decision, alighting on his face. Grave and worn he gazes away from me, lost in a world of thought. The words, which have lain sleeping beneath the surface, bubble up in a rush, and I a voice so harsh and broken I barely recognise it as my own, I ask a question which has been nagging at the back of my mind for a long time.

"Who is Robin?"

…

Time merges together, no longer single spans of light and dark, but a continuous line. I sleep when I am tired, or when I am to physically exhausted to move further. I eat when food can be found, berries, nuts, occasionally edible mushrooms lying next to a tree – but these are unpredictable and the occasional illness they bring about is hardly worth the meagre meal they provide. I almost regret my decision, if I had stayed, food at lest would have been mine, but staying meant a loss of freedom that neither mind nor body could tolerate.

Once, I heard voices, calling, searching, and although I was too far to hear who or what they called, I hid. Fear makes cowards of us all, and my fear was very real. Even when the voices had passed I dared not show myself, waiting until the sky darkened to emerge from the hollow tree in which I had been curled.

I think I had always known somewhere deep down, where I was going, who I was seeking, but until the memories came back it had been lost, unclear. I would seek my mother's people, the people of my childhood. With them I had taken shelter as a child, they had been my haven into to which none of life's cruelties could come. And there again I would seek the love that had been so freely offered.

Cymru, her homeland, was the first place I had ever truly belonged. In looks I seemed of my father – light hair, pale eyes and fair skin, but my heart and mind were of my mother. Where my father was a jealous man, loath to give anything which he felt was rightly his, my mother was wise and kind. Never short of love, and even as her life drew to an end, she opened her heart to whoever should seek it. Now, more than ever I need this love, and so I travel onwards, memories thick in the air.

…

The burning smell of herbs hangs heavy in the air, making me drowsy and light headed. I long to open a window, to let the cool fresh air of early evening into the stuffy room, but I dare not. Instead I gaze at the shutters, motes of dust caught in the golden lines of light the filter through the cracks. This is so different from any future I had seen, and yet I cannot bring myself to regret finding her.

I have been telling her a story of Robin, the day he arrived back from war. But lost in my own thoughts I have trailed off, staring into nothingness. What use is speaking anyway? She will not respond, in fact I am beginning to fear she cannot. A slight rustle of blankets makes me turn; she has been still for so long now the sound cuts through the silence like a knife. Her face, which is mostly hidden by the folds of her blankets, is turned towards me, and gazing from it, almost lost in shadow are two grey eyes.

My body barley registers this before something wonderful happens, something I have dreamt about but never hoped, never dreamed would happen. She opens her mouth and speaks.

"Who is Robin?"

The impact of the words does not hit me at first, all I can think of is her mouth, slowly, painfully forming those three simple words. And I lean forward drinking in her steady gaze.

"Marian. You're alive!"

…

**End note: Hope you liked it! A historical note "Cymru" is an old English word for Wales. It was used from 1000 – 1100 Ad, and although I'm not sure if it was around in the late 12****th**** century it sounded good ******** If anyone knows if this is historically accurate or not please let me know. **


	6. Awakening

**Author's note: *looks guilty* sorry for the long wait for the update hope this was worth it (probably wasn't). Thanks again to LadyKate1, who keeps on reminding me that I haven't updated (trust me I need it, my brain is a sieve at the moment), and to Emily who has told me multiple times that I am useless and that I need to update (and also that she loves me). So without further ado, here is the chapter. **

After those first few sounds the words flow from my mouth like the water I've so long craved. Questions, answers, comforts and dreams, all jumbled together like the thread of cloak. The man beside me listens; saying nothing, just staring at as if, the moment his eyes leave mine I will cease to exist. In him I can see none of the pain which haunted his voice, only the light which chased away the darkness.

I sleep often, but my dreams are peaceful, filled with the one face I know. So that he is with me always: in sleeping and in waking. Blue eyes gazing down at me, black hair fluttering across his brow, lips turned into a simple smile. His face fills me so completely that I forget about the other that joined me in the darkness, the man with the laughing eyes.

I awake to find myself alone in the room, and suddenly I am afraid. Where is he? If he is not there to protect me the darkness will return and if it does I am not sure I can fight it. But soon he returns, and the gentle touch of his rough skin against mine chases away the demons. I hold him close, he is – quite literally – my world, and I turn to him as a flower turns to the sun.

Even now I am awake the stories do not stop, but for the first time I can see his hands as they draw his words in the air.

"There are so many things out there Marian; and all of them just waiting to be found."

It is only as he tells me yet another tale from what I know to be my life, that I realise he never answered my first question. Who is Robin? I open my mouth to ask again but something stops me. Now that I can once again see I notice the flashes behind his eyes when he mentions the name and so I stay silent. But I cannot help but wonder: What has happened to cause a hurt that runs so deep a very name brings pain?

…

All is well until it starts to rain. The cold droplets soak through my feeble excuse for clothing, chilling me to the bone. I try huddling under an over-hanging rock shelf but the wind is merciless, driving the water in a steady stream, drenching me. My teeth chatter and my arms and legs are so cold I can barely feel them. This time I am sure – I am going to die.

Perhaps if I had been in the forest, healthy and reasonably well clothed, then I would have stood a chance. But I am none of these. Instead I am on the windy moors which stretch for miles in the North and West of England, recovering from weeks – no months – of sickness, clothed in a single worn shirt and pants so ripped and muddy I may as well not be wearing any. Also I have not eaten for days.

I can feel the water as it drips down my neck, following the contour of my spine, making me shiver and shake. I am totally alone. Without friends, without hope; both died a long time ago. I think suddenly of the phrase: putting all your eggs in one basket - that was my mistake. I placed all my dreams, all my desires, all my hopes for the future in Marian and now she is gone. In my minds I eye I see an egg, smashed and broken on the ground and link it instantly to the memory of the young girl, crushed and bleeding in the sand.

For that was what she was really. For all her bravery, all her suffering, her hurt, her fear. She was just a child. And now she is a ghost, a memory forever trapped inside my mind. Warped and changed by my desire for her to be real. This image which I have created to take away the loneliness cannot be, it is not her. If she has been so distorted in matter of weeks, how will I remember her in the years to come? Will I have anything left which is her? Or will my memories be blown away like dust in the wind, leaving only hollow falsehood in their place?

…

At first her words are so ravaged by fever that they are barely legible, but as hours pass I begin to understand a little of what she is trying to say. Mostly there are questions about the stories I told her during the long fever filled days. They are often strange, things she should know and understand, but I place the loss if memory down to trauma, nothing to serious, until she reaches the last one.

It has been a long day and my eyes grow heavy from watching her. At one point while she slept I grew bold and left the room for food, but her screams when she woke and found me absent stilled fear in my heart and I have not left her bed again, although I long to sleep on my own mattress.

She sleeps so often, mumbling incoherent words that chase themselves around the empty air. Even in her dream state she can sense my presence and if I so much as rise to stretch my aching legs, she wakes and calls me back. Now, as I watch her eyes flicker beneath closed lids, she holds my hand in hers. For one so sick her grip is surprisingly strong, and strangely this and her closeness reassure me – all is not lost.

I lean in to her, feeling her warm breath - smelling of sweet grass - against my cheek, and brushing my lips against the soft flesh beneath me. How often I have longed to do this, and how often I have been denied.

I am so sure she is asleep and her words are so soft, that for a moment I think it is simply my imagination, but what she says I so true, and so full of her heart that I know they are real.

"I know what haunts you," She whispers, "and you cannot run forever."

…

At first I thought the pain was gone but now I realise it was only hidden, trapped beneath the surface. He conceals it well, but, in those unguarded moments when he sits, gazing into the distance, I see it etched across his features. It is so real for him, so ever-present, that it frightens me. I know he locks it away for my sake, to save me from the hurt, but he cannot protect me forever. I long to reach out and tell him it will be alright. But I cannot.

I do not know what this inner turmoil is, or why it hurts him. It is the pain of a stranger: unknown and unhealed. Poor broken soul, there is something inside of you, some darkness from which you cannot run, yet still you try. I realise then that I am as he is; we are both running from a darkness that threatens to consume us utterly, our only haven is the other. For he clings to me as strongly as I cling to him.

…

In my dream I am winding my way across the darkened moors. In front of me dances a light, leading me further and further in to the night. Sometimes I see the image of a girl holding to torch, caught for an instant in the flickering light, at other times it seems I am completely alone.

It is strange this dream, for I can still feel the fatigue that seeps into my bones, and the biting wind that wends its way along the heathery hill around us. Stumbling forward I trip and land flat on the ground and so tired am I that I cannot even raise my head out of the mud. I simply lie there feeling the cold damp earth press into my face.

The light is brighter now, as the phantom girl returns to bend over my fallen body. I feel her hand pressing gently against my forehead, knowing the heat that burns beneath my skin. She speaks in a foreign tongue, the words falling from her mouth like a song.

"Ach yn brydie! Brysia, cariad, brysia!"*

A low moan escapes my lips and she leans closer shaking me roughly.

"Ca I fyny! Cawn at chwima, 'r dywyllwch he lfeydd nil."**

Something in her tone awakens me to the urgency of her quest and with the last of my strength I pull myself up, staggering towards an unknown destination. I am not sure when I realise I am no longer dreaming.

…

I do not have time to querie her, for the moment the words leave her lips her eyes flutter closed and she is asleep.

"I know what haunts you…"

How can she know when I do not know myself? I can feel something dark and malevolent lurking in the back of my mind, but every time I try to focus on it, it disappears – a flicker in the corner of my eye. Like a star you stare at directly, only to find it missing from the sky.

Could she mean Robin? Has she seen the way my anger, my fear when I speak of him? No. I hid my pain to deep. And yet…? She never speaks of him, almost like she knows how the name cuts into me, a physical pain, invading my body until I can hardly breathe. Or does she mean something darker? Her death, or half death? I was so sure she could remember nothing of it, but now I am shaken.

And it is not just the words. The way she looks at me sometimes, as though I frighten her but she is cannot figure out why. Like her body knows it should shy away from me, but her mind holds to tight. And the cries which echo through her otherwise peaceful sleep and then disappear, they fill me with dread.

"It hurts, oh it hurts so much. Please, please make it stop!"

…

**End note: Translations from welsh: *"You are burning! Hurry, sweetheart, hurry!" **"Get up! WE have to move, the dark hunts us."**

**I take no responsibility for the accuracy of these translations and if anyone knows better ones please tell me. I should also like to apologise for the ridiculous amount of time it has taken for me to update this! It is all my fault and I give you all free cookies and milk to say thanks for waiting ;)**


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